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Strategies to Prevent Displacement of Asian American and Pacific Islander Families

A report released by the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement titled Asian American & Pacific Islander Anti-Displacement Strategies provides 24 local strategies and several national policy solutions to prevent displacement of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) families resulting from rising housing costs and gentrification.

Strong housing markets with rapidly increasing housing costs are home to some of the largest populations of AAPI families. The neighborhoods featured in the report saw an average increase in median gross rent of 74% and an increase in home values of 112% between 2000 and 2014. Incomes did not keep pace. Between 2007 and 2014, poverty among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders increased by 50%. As a result of rising housing costs, the study’s featured neighborhoods saw a net loss of more than 1,500 Asian American and Pacific Islander families from 2010 to 2014, while their population increased nationally by 6%.

The report provides 24 local strategies to prevent displacement in gentrifying neighborhoods. Among the strategies described are innovative foreclosure prevention, farmland and culture preservation, community development loans, historic preservation, equitable transit-oriented planning, citywide anti-displacement plans, in-language tenant counseling, and community benefit agreements.

The report recommends a number of national policy solutions, including greater public resources for affordable housing through a cross-agency hot markets program designed to address displacement of low income renters and small businesses, steps to ensure greater equity in transit-oriented development, meaningful community planning engagement, and mitigation of climate change displacement. The report also calls for a national Section 8 stabilization program that increases vouchers in hot market cities and protects tenants’ right to remain, guidance defining hot market neighborhoods under the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, and increased revenue sources for the national Housing Trust Fund for additional affordable housing development in hot markets.